(in Polish) Antropologia widowisk WH-KU-M-I-2-AntrWid

The metaphor of the "theater of the world" has been used in European culture for centuries to describe man's situation on earth, his relationship with God and people, and the meaning of his life. It was used by poets and philosophers, as well as great playwrights, including William Shakespeare and Calderon de la Barca. In the 20th century, this metaphor was considered the guiding principle for explaining various social facts. These facts are perceived as cultural spectacles (performances), i.e. activities involving the direct production of a culturally significant message - using appropriate means and according to adopted rules - towards current and directly reacting recipients. Such spectacles have shaped social life since ancient times, primarily as various types of rituals (e.g. sacrificial ones) and festive celebrations (e.g. processions and marches). Sports competitions and games also had a similar nature. Against this background, artistic theater in ancient Greece and Rome was only one of the variants of human performative activity. Nowadays, a "cultural spectacle" is considered to be any social interaction based on cooperation or competition and fulfilling various functions: religious, cognitive, political, ludic and many others. We will look at them by reading classic texts by anthropologists, sociologists and cultural experts collected (in fragments) in Leszek Kolankiewicz's textbook "Anthropology of Culture". We will also use texts supplementing this textbook and digital records of selected social spectacles, which we will analyze and interpret. We will ask what roles we play and on what stages we perform in our everyday lives. Our starting point will be Erving Goffman's concept presented in his work "Man in the Theater of Everyday Life".

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We will deal with the following issues (unless otherwise stated, all texts come from the textbook "Anthropology of Spectacles" edited by Leszek Kolankiewicz):
1. SOCIAL INTERACTIONS: Goffman, "Man in the Theater of Everyday Life."
2. RITUALIZATION: Arnold van Gennep, "Rites of Passage"; Victor Turner, "Ritual Trial".
3. LITURGY AS A SPECTACLE: Tadeusz Kornaś, "Angels and the World Spectacle", Kraków 2009 (fragments)
4. FUN: Johan Huizinga, "Homo ludens. Play as a source
culture; Roger Caillois, "Games and Men".
5. CEREMONIAL: Jean Duvignaud, Social Ceremony and Theater Ceremony; Piotr Osęka, "Process".
6. WAR and SPORT: Roger Caillois, War and the Sacred; John MacAloon, "The Olympic Games and the Theory of Spectacle in Contemporary Societies."
7. VICTIM: Claude Levi-Strauss, The Sorcerer and His Magic; Rene Girard, "The Sacrificial Crisis".
8. CARNIVAL: Mikhail M. Bakhtin, "Folk forms of carnival holidays"; Karl Braun, "Carnival? Carnivalization!".
9. ACTION: Victor Turner, Theater of Everyday Life, everyday life in the theater; Maria Janion, "Flight, flying, crouching, lying down".
10. GESTURE, DANCE: Helmuth Plessner, "Laughter and Cry"; Yuri M. Lotman, "Bal".
11. BODY STIGMATIZATION: Claude Levi-Strauss, Body Painting; Bruno Bettelheim, "Symbolic Wounds".
12. DOLL: Andrzej Falkiewicz, "Theatrical Man"; Henryk Jurkowski, "Dolls in ritual".
13. MASK: Karl Kerenyi, "The Man and the Mask"; Jean-Thierry Maertens, "The Mask and the Mirror...".
14. DOUBLE - CHARACTER: Paweł Deybel, "Mirror Study".
15. METAMORPHOSES OF THE SUBJECT: Georg Herbert Mead, "Personality"; Martin Buber, "Me and You".

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Two absences from classes are excused.
We work in a reference system.
Participation in the discussion affects the final grade.
Oral examination.